Recorded mouse positions replayed over music video [NSFW]

logn 13 years ago |

"After 50 years of pointing and clicking, we are celebrating the nearing end of the computer cursor with a music video where all our cursors can be seen together for one last time."

I don't see any way the cursor dies without the keyboard dying. And I don't see the keyboard dying. Just because tech bloggers and journalists are incapable of writing about any hardware besides tablets and phones doesn't mean that's all we (will) use.

sliverstorm 13 years ago | |

Haven't you heard, the mouse & keyboard has been dying for the last forty years. Much the same as it has been "The year of Linux on the desktop" for the last twenty-two.

mapleoin 13 years ago | |

I don't see why the mouse should be tied to the keyboard. They're used for different purposes. We use mice to point stuff in a specific place on the screen. It would be much faster to do that by just putting your finger on the screen (and more intuitive, since we already use our fingers like that). I think the time it takes for my hand to move from the keyboard to the mouse is about equal than it would take to move it to the screen.

logn 13 years ago | | |

So assuming you're using a physical keyboard with a separate monitor, you would prefer to extend your arm out to your monitor? I think the mouse would be much faster and a trackpad below the keyboard is faster still. Further, the mouse is more exact, doesn't obscure the image, allows quick access to right-clicking, and doesn't leave smudges on the screen (though I see us solving that problem).

nooneelse 13 years ago | | |

Also, a mouse is quite handy if the screen being displayed to is far enough away that one can't, in some common use cases, touch it comfortably.

knowaveragejoe 13 years ago | | |

Your finger is fat and imprecise. Also, ever heard of gorilla arm?

Kaivo 13 years ago | |

I removed the mouse from my desktop so that I better learn my keyboard shortcut and eventually get faster. Also, I find using a mouse annoying.

stordoff 13 years ago |

This site also makes interesting use of the Javascript console. Viewable here if you can't see it for any reason: http://pastebin.ca/2359993

egypturnash 13 years ago | |

"We are a design & development studio based in Amsterdam. And by we, I mean Jonathan Puckey, Roel Wouters & Luna Maurer."

Oh hey, that's one of the people who was involved in the late lamented Scriptographer[1] plugin for Illustrator.

[1]: http://scriptographer.org

ChrisNorstrom 13 years ago |

For the first time in my life, I felt as part of a human ant colony. I'm also proud to see other people admit they're asexual during the "Which do you prefer" question with a male on side and a female on the other. A small percentage of arrows flocked to the center in between them... Or maybe that means they were bi... :(

sliverstorm 13 years ago | |

I'd expect an asexual individual would not be "undecided" between the two, but "indifferent", and thus their mouse could be anywhere.

rodly 13 years ago |

To whoever owns this : If you remove the NSFW bit you will probably get at least 200% more traffic if not more. I almost shared this on Facebook, but for obvious reasons don't want my mother and younger friends seeing this content on my behalf.

---

Aside, that was really fun and I laughed quite a few times.

epaga 13 years ago | |

Actually, by now (1 hour later) it's no longer NSFW I'd say - enough cursors cover the naughty bits up so it's a bikini of cursors... :)

baby 13 years ago | |

I personally don't see that as NSFW. Well, it is not safe for WORK, but not in the sense you're saying it is : I'd have no problem showing that to my mother or younger people. What part is NSFM (not safe for mum) for you?

jstanley 13 years ago |

Doesn't work for me. Just "NOW LOADING CROWD-SOURCED MUSIC VIDEO".

EDIT: Chromium 25, Ubuntu.

shared4you 13 years ago | |

I had Flash block and "do not run plugins" enabled. Turn on flash & boom! Ubuntu 12.10, Chrome.

goostavos 13 years ago | |

Tried firefox, and chrome.. no luck for me either :( the music plays, and the next updates, but the rest is just black screen.

spizzo 13 years ago | |

I'm running firefox on mint and it worked; it just takes a long time to load. Maybe just give it a minute and/or try reloading.

JamesLeonis 13 years ago | |

It didn't work for me at first in Chrome. Reloading the page fixed the problem.

MattBearman 13 years ago |

This is really amazing, great idea and really well executed.

I know it kinda goes against the whole idea of this, but I think it would have been better if the mouse cursors that didn't "obey" the instructions were filtered out, all the cursors that just stayed in one place, or didn't follow the instructions were a little distracting.

Zecc 13 years ago | |

It won't even by necessary to completely remove them. They could just turn down the cursors' opacity proportional to how off they are.

fudged71 13 years ago | |

That was my favorite part :-( I liked seeing the individualism

alternize 13 years ago |

apparently, the video is re-rendered on a regular basis containing the flock of mouse pointers:

  We composite the music video with the latest pointers every 30 minutes orso.
  For that we use Node.js & FFMPEG

daigoba66 13 years ago | |

There is one shot that has a small yellow disc. I guess after many iterations people with their mouse pointers have drawn on it a smiley face. That is pretty neat.

egypturnash 13 years ago | | |

If you watch it interactively, it explicitly asks you to draw a smiley at that point.

susi22 13 years ago | |

So if it's just a video. How does the "avoid each other" work?

asciimo 13 years ago | | |

Technically, the goal is to "avoid previously rendered cursors." But the effect is the same, ultimately.

hackmiester 13 years ago |

I can't get it to move past this... http://puu.sh/2ATlK

I have a computer with a touch screen, but I'm not using it. It happens in Firefox and Chrome.

barbs 13 years ago | |

Awww, not working for me either. It seems to be frozen on a screen showing lots of cursors that aren't moving anywhere. Shame, looks like it's a really cool idea.

grimtrigger 13 years ago |

Too bad its NSFW. One of those things I'd love to forward around.

Overall, awesome concept.

jiggy2011 13 years ago | |

It's got a few naked breasts in it, and they are mostly covered with mouse pointers now.

Are many people legitimately shocked by that sort of content in 2013?

DanBC 13 years ago | | |

Facebook remove images of breast even if they are mothers breast-feeding infants.

Youtube doesn't allow breasts.

A US TV outrage happened because of one partially uncovered breast during a sport event.

Yes, some people are shocked by that sort of content. Legitimate is secondary; if they own the computers you're using and they have power to dismiss you it's a good idea to think of their reasonable requests as legitimate.

jiggy2011 13 years ago | | |

Sounds like a US centric thing then, most countries in europe AFAIK will allow breasts to be shown in prime time TV as long as the context is not overtly sexual.

Edit: I've definitely seen breasts on youtube

elliottcarlson 13 years ago | | |

Youtube allows breasts and nudity when used as an art form - not in a pornographic sense.

sliverstorm 13 years ago | | |

I guess your grandparents are pretty progressive, then?

iso-8859-1 13 years ago | |

> Too bad its NSFW.

Too bad it's not safe for your work place :) (maybe that was what you meant). I don't see any reason to sacrifice expression for prudes.

looki 13 years ago | |

That part takes like 5 seconds and other mouse pointers actually cover the... parts that make it NSFW.

ajanuary 13 years ago |

I notice a mix of OS X and Windows style cursors. Presumably it's actually detecting your OS.

JeremyBanks 13 years ago |

http://vimeo.com/62252536

This seems to be a previously-rendered copy of the video. It actually plays, but lacks the instructions overlayed on the actual site.

feniv 13 years ago |

I wish the past-cursors were just rendered as dots because the barrage of pointers made it hard to keep track of my own mouse cursor (even with the larger size and contrast).

nemrow 13 years ago |

I love these kind of projects! Keep up the "point"-less work! :)

maaaats 13 years ago |

They said avoid the model, not cover her! :)

alternize 13 years ago |

awesome idea! there's even an easter egg hidden in the code: open the javascript console after the page was loaded _for the first time_ :)

Le_SDT 13 years ago |

Was fun but the NSFW part is ... too much

FramesPerSushi 13 years ago | |

Is it really? I find that sad. I thought by 2013 we'd grown out of that.

Le_SDT 13 years ago | | |

Well, I didn't express myself correctly, I agree. I meant, for the purpose it has, it's just random but a NSFW or 18+ thing would have solve everything :) btw if there was a 18+ note I didn't see it. The NSFW has been added after I made my first comment, too.

baby 13 years ago | | |

What is 18+ in this video? I honestly can't see anything that would shock anyone underage.

Pwntastic 13 years ago |

nsfw...

hcarvalhoalves 13 years ago |

This is art.

xmpir 13 years ago |

this is SO great!

aggronn 13 years ago |

I missed the latter part of the title. Can we have NSFW stuff labeled at the beginning of the title since they're so uncommon and unexpected?

devindotcom 13 years ago | |

This seems unreasonable to me. I think we can safely hold people responsible for reading to the end of a seven-word sentence.

ekimekim 13 years ago | | |

> I think we can safely hold people responsible

Responsible for what? Seriously man talk sense.